


Take the Sky

by hauntedjaeger (saellys), quigonejinn



Series: Heroes in the Sky [2]
Category: Firefly, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:03:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger, https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a grim 'verse out there. People take a measure of happiness wherever they can get it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011219) by [hauntedjaeger (saellys)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger), [quigonejinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn). 



> This is a spinoff of quigonejinn's brilliant "Heroes," and it won't make any kind of sense unless you've read that and you're also thoroughly familiar with the Firefly universe. Remember "Out of Gas"? It's kind of like that, but happier.

When the surveyor breaks the news that he and his wife are leaving before their lease is up, Herc sends out a few waves. Unlike Stacker, he didn't cut all ties after the war, still has contacts scattered around the 'verse, good people to know in a pinch. One of them gets back to him a few days later, says there happens to be a real live registered Companion at New Europa, looking for a ride, pun very much intended.

Herc reads the forwarded details, and nearly chokes.

* * *

Scott and Herc were a gamma pay grade in the flushest of years, and even though Scott wasn't trying to raise a kid in his spare time and had a little more ready cash, the bid he submitted to the registry must have been among the lowest in history. Somehow, he managed to get a response. Herc didn't even find out about it until the day of, and he nearly took a swing at his brother.

"Come on," Scott drawled. "You gonna live like a monk the rest of your life? I'm doing you a favor here. I'll even let you pick the one you like best."

It had been eight bloody months since A--Ariel. But Herc went along that night anyway, because Scott did spend a hell of a lot of money for this experience, and how often did mid-level Alliance Rangers stationed at Manila, of all places, get to knock boots with not one but two licensed Companions? 

Scott's face turned terribly, terribly red when they stepped onto the Beckets' chartered ship and found out he had purchased an evening with two brothers. Herc couldn't help it; he laughed out loud. Bullet dodged. No harm, no foul, it wasn't his money and the evening off would be nice. Good conversation, if nothing else. 

The Companions must have been used to this reaction, especially the farther they traveled from the Central Planets. They exchanged a wry glance. "After you," one of them said, and gestured for the other to lead on away from the boarding ramp.

"Age before beauty," the other shot back. Herc thought that sounded like a tired old jab, not even rehearsed banter. The kind of thing Scott might say to him, if Scott was clever.

The Beckets skipped the tea party, to Scott's obvious relief, and brought out four ice cold beers in actual glass bottles. They started by comparing notes on Mid and Rim Planets, but it wasn't like Companions and Rangers ever saw the same sides of any planet, so Yancy, the older one, transitioned smoothly to asking about the Hansens' war stories. His interest was probably genuine, and Scott was more than happy to tell them all for the umpteenth time while Herc sat there nursing his beer, fiddling with his ring, tuning out of Scott's memories of the glory days. Mindanao. Serenity Valley. New Hong Kong. 

He still had half a bottle left, but everyone else must have run dry, because Raleigh, the younger one, said, "Give me a hand with the next round, sir?" 

And Herc got up and followed Raleigh into the next room, which was a sleek and well-stocked little canteen, all chrome surfaces, a quad-level refrigeration unit, all kinds of equipment for freshly prepared meals. When Raleigh opened one cooler door Herc glimpsed an array of beverages, plenty he didn't recognize. The Companion pulled out four more green bottles, popped the caps, turned to hold one out to Herc, but spotted him fiddling with his wedding ring, and he held still and watched.

"I, ah. Lost my wife. Back at Ariel last year." Herc didn't really lose her. He knew exactly where she was, and he went after Chuck instead. 

This was the part where most people couldn't pull off compassion, burned jets straight to pity and changed the subject. But Raleigh Becket's eyes held no pity. He knew how to pull off compassion. "I know. I remembered your name from the reports."

He didn't know what to say to that, or how to hold Raleigh's even gaze, so he took the proffered beer and drank. 

"The reports didn't say what your wife's name was," Becket said.

Herc swallowed, shut his eyes, blew out a breath, mustered enough voice to say, "Angela." 

He didn't even close his mouth before Raleigh's lips were on his, soft, soft. Just for a moment, and then Herc opened his eyes and Raleigh said, "Follow me, Ranger Hansen."

And the only protest Herc could make was, "What about the beer?" 

Raleigh wrapped the fingers of one hand around three bottlenecks, reached over with the other hand and took Herc's wrist, pulled him out of the canteen, away from Scott and Yancy. "We'll take care of those."

Some time afterwards, when Scott felt comfortable enough with the past to complain about it, he told Herc that he tried to sidle up to Yancy last night, figuring something was better than nothing, but the elder Becket had just smirked and said, "No point. I'm not soft like my brother."

* * *

After Mako comes back to the bridge and reports that their new shuttle tenant is settling in, and Chuck grimaces in a way they all know well, Herc excuses himself and heads aft. Stacker already told him that the contract specifies that Mister Becket will not provide his services to any crewmember, so Herc figures he'll put up a sign sometime. 

The shuttle's door is open, but Herc knocks at the jamb. "Mister Becket?" he calls. 

"Come in, Ranger Hansen." Herc does, tamping down his gratification at being remembered, and finds a very different man in the shuttle's cabin, unpacking his delicate tea service. Raleigh wore flawlessly-tailored silk clothing the last time Herc saw him (well, nothing at all the last time Herc saw him, but before that...), but now he's in a faded old sweater and trousers, an outfit that looks like it came from Herc's own footlocker. He's kneeling on the shuttle's floor, arranging cups and saucers just so on the low table, but when Herc steps in he stills his hands and looks up. "I'm glad you stopped by. I wanted to thank you for referring me to your captain." 

"Least I could do," Herc says with a shrug.

Raleigh smiles, knowingly. "No, it isn't." Then he nods toward Herc's hands, and Herc realizes he's been fiddling with his ring again. "Is that new?" It's a different ring. Tungsten. Mako made one for Herc and one for Stacker in a little forge Alison built down in the cargo bay. The old ring sits at his collarbone now, on the chain that used to hold his dog tags.

"Four years," Herc says, nothing but proud. Four years of anything is an accomplishment when you live on the Rim. 

"Congratulations," Raleigh says, and Herc has no doubt that he means it. 

"Thank you. I'm sorry about your brother." 

The smile fades. "Thank you, sir." 

"Just Herc from now on, mate." 

Raleigh dips his head and there doesn't seem to be anything else to say, so Herc nods back and heads for the bridge in time to watch  _Jaeger_ disengage from the hub, and after a while he and Stacker are the only ones left on the bridge, and when the captain puts his hand on the back of Herc's neck he leans into it, closes his eyes, and smiles. 


	2. Chapter 2

Holiday Choi has her mother's round face and her father's enormous grin. She has tiny feet in huge combat boots. And right now she has the little plastic figurines Chuck keeps at the console in her hands and she's making them fight each other, glossy blue robot versus snarling tentacled monster, complete with narration. Both figures have been chewed thoroughly by Max, rescued, chewed again. "Grr, argh!" Holiday says, but she says it quietly because they're waiting on clearance to liftoff and she knows to be quiet on the bridge. "Empty the clip! Empty the clip!"

Stacker Pentecost would not have picked  _Jaeger_ as a place to raise children, and that includes Mako and Chuck, who have not been children as long as Stacker has known them. But he isn't the one raising Holiday, and declaring his ship a no-spawning zone would have put them down an engineer and munitioner, so for a couple years there were cloth diapers stuffed away in every corner of the ship and all the crewmembers learned to use them. And Holiday grew out of that, thank all the saints, but she's still a few years away from being useful to daily operations. Stacker knows this for certain because Mako once handed him her clipboard with a resource consumption analysis on it, including line items for each person on  _Jaeger_ , and she noted in the margin that Holiday's impact is negligible and she does not pose a significant threat to the ship's funds or function. 

Her concern was understandable: Mako aims to be useful, to produce more than she consumes, and Stacker and Herc got her out of a place where small children were quite possibly thrown out the airlock when they underperformed. No one on this ship is that kind of Alliance, though.

No one on this ship is any kind of Alliance, anymore.

A wave comes in with clearance, and Stacker says, "Take us out of the world, Mister Hansen."

"Aye, sir," says Chuck, and Holiday looks up as  _Jaeger_ 's thrusters hum and the display shows a facsimile of a dust bowl dropping away beneath them. 

"How does the _Jaeger_ break gravity?" Holiday asks while the broad blue sky gets closer. 

Chuck gives her a surprisingly concise and accessible summary of physics, and sublight engines, and why Mako's modifications let  _Jaeger_ slip out of a planet's pull without so much as a shudder. Stacker waits while Holiday soaks up this information. Then he says, "It's not all buttons and charts, little albatross. You want to know what the first rule of flying is?"

Holiday turns to face him, eyes shining.

* * *

They were never getting off the ground. 

"Do not let the captain's calm demeanor fool you, Bester," Tamsin said as she trailed Stacker, who trailed the mechanic from the canteen to the engine room. "There's a job waiting for us on Paquin, and we've been parked on this rock a week longer than we planned. You've got one job on this ship." They had nearly worn out their welcome at port, and on top of Bester's latest delay, Stacker hadn't seen Alison in hours, which would be a problem if they had to blast their way off-planet.

"Yeah, but, uh, there's stuff to do," said Bester. "And it's taken me this long to figure out what the real problem is anyway, and I hate to break it to you, Lieutenant, but we're stuck."

"Define stuck," Stacker said as they stepped into the engine room, where  _Jaeger_ 's turbine wasn't turning and was, he had to admit, making some unusual noises. 

Bester kicked the engine block, and the noises ceased. "Secondary grav boot's shot," he declared.

"No it ain't," said a voice Stacker had never heard before. 

There was a rustling noise under the engine. Alison appeared first, straightening her dress, and fired off a quick salute to Stacker and Tamsin. Then a wiry little man appeared beside her, and Stacker thought he must be seeing things--that couldn't be an actual silk bowtie. They were a long way from the Central Planets. 

"Alison, what the hell?" said Bester.

"Nothing wrong with your grav boot," said the man in the bowtie. "Grav boot's just fine. Hello!" 

"He doesn't--that's not--no it ain't!" Bester sputtered. 

"I saw the trouble plain as day when I was down there on my back," said the man, and he winked at Alison. Alison smiled back. At Stacker's right, Tamsin made a gagging noise. "Your reg couple's bad." He waved them over, reached down under the engine, and yanked off a piece. "And that's a shame when you've got this new fluid synapse system, you know? Which, pardon my saying, was clearly not installed by this guy. Anyway, reg couple tends to gum up the works when it gets tacked. Better to just take your G-line, plug it straight into the port pin-lock, and that should..."

The turbine started spinning. Stacker and Tamsin exchanged a glance. Tamsin spoke first. "Where'd you learn all that, Mister..." 

"Choi. Tendo Choi. I worked the Alliance ferry up to Angel Station, back before trade dried up."

"Got much experience with a vessel like this?" Stacker asked. 

"Never been up in one before," Tendo Choi said. 

"Wanna?" said Tamsin.

Choi thought about it. He glanced to Alison. "Would that be weird for you?"

"If you make it weird," Alison said, "I can always shoot you." 

Tendo gave her an enormous grin. "Shiny! Let me go pack and send a wave to my Yeye." 

"Uh," Bester said. "Captain? What do you need two mechanics for?"

Alison walked over and patted Bester's cheek on her way out. "We really don't."

The look Tendo Choi gave her as she left was one Stacker could only describe as--

* * *

"Love," he says. "You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but if you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. And you can't fly alone. You have to choose to believe not only in yourself, and your ship, but in _each other._ " 

Stacker gave some good speeches during the war, pumped his boys up with Courage and Shadow and maybe a little actual human emotion to boot before he sent them in to crack some Browncoat skulls, but he's pretty sure no Alliance soldier ever got as inspired by his words as Holiday Choi appears to be now. Hell, even Chuck looks a bit teary. 

"What do we say to that, Holiday?" says Herc's kid as the sky turns dark, peppers with stars.

Holiday picks up her toys and chirps, "Too gorram right, sir!"

 _Jaeger_ probably isn't the best place to raise children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks go to quigonejinn for inventing Holiday Choi, my new favorite Pacific Rim character, and to Vongchild for her magnificent Holiday headcanons.


	3. Chapter 3

It's so early when Mako and Chuck climb out of Raleigh's bed that it's technically still the night cycle. "What's going on?" he murmurs as he sits up, then flips Chuck's pillow because Chuck drools in his sleep more than Max. 

"We're picking up some new passengers," Mako tells him, tugging on her boots. Chuck pulls up his suspenders. "Get back to sleep."

An hour later, the Mule screeches to a stop on the cargo bay deck just as _Jaeger_ lurches skyward, and Raleigh didn't go back to sleep, but if he had he'd surely be awake now. 

The ship moves smoothly enough, even on a hasty takeoff, that Raleigh can walk out of his shuttle and into the cargo bay, and by the time there are stars outside the narrow windows, Mako and Herc have climbed down from the front of the Mule and are helping their passengers out, checking for injuries. Blood runs down from Herc's scalp, and Raleigh can't be sure but it looks like it was grazed by a bullet. Herc doesn't seem to notice.

Even from the catwalk, Raleigh recognizes Doctor Hermann Gottlieb. A while back, when he was taking one client a year just to keep his license active, the Guild forwarded him Doctor Gottlieb's bid, and he spent a long time considering it. Eventually he passed--not because of Gottlieb's fully disclosed disability, which would not have prevented Raleigh from making the evening enjoyable for both of them, but rather because Raleigh didn't have much of a head for math, didn't think he could keep up with Gottlieb if the conversation moved that way.

Now Gottlieb reassures Mako he is unharmed and hurries to the back of the Mule, where they've strapped some sort of box, about half the size of an escape pod. He checks a panel on the top. 

Herc Hansen stands with his left hand at the small of his back and his right hand out, every inch an officer and a gentleman, to assist the other passenger. Raleigh doesn't recognize her, but he knows at once who she is. She makes climbing out of a bright yellow land speeder look like a dance. Her gown and robe are finer than anything on the ship outside of Raleigh's shuttle, but the cut suggests a lesser Madrassa--Ariel, if he had to guess. 

It would be nice to talk shop with someone. He hasn't been around another Companion, in fact, since Yancy. He's gone five years without shared experiences. Might even have a thing or two to teach her.

Then Raleigh notices the swell under the woman's gown, and he figures maybe she's getting out of the business for a while. 

* * *

They met (Vanessa tells Raleigh over tea a day later, once they have finally definitely eluded their Alliance tail) when she took his contract. Of course she knew who he was; everyone on Osiris knew of the Gottliebs. 

That first evening they argued, viciously, for five hours, about the possibility of faster-than-light travel. Not just whether it was possible, but whether it was necessary. Vanessa was just out of the Madrassa, wanted to see the universe, wanted to do it slowly, not rush past everything that was interesting. Hermann reached over to the silver bowl on Vanessa's tea table and retrieved an orange.  

"This came from Persephone," he said, all didactic theatricality, digging his thumb into the top of the peel. "It took two weeks on the fastest cargo ship to arrive here. Half the shipment was spoilt. Consequently, the price for the good half doubled, and you, Vanessa, went marginally further into debt until you accepted my bid and received your payment in advance. With the system I'm proposing, this orange would go from grove to market in less than a day. And just imagine," he concluded, presenting a carpel to her, "how that would revolutionize everything else."

"Are you implying that with faster-than-light travel, I could retire?" Vanessa said, then ate the fruit.

 "Give up this life of crime," Hermann said, smiling. 

They divided up the rest of the orange in a comfortable silence, finished it, and went back to arguing about numbers. Hermann left without even attempting to kiss her, and submitted another bid the next week, higher than the first. Vanessa took it, and the next one, and the next, until. Well.

They could only communicate when she took his contracts, so Hermann submitted a final bid in order to tell her that he was leaving. "I have a… colleague," he said, holding both her hands in his. "A fellow researcher. We've exchanged correspondence for years. He was selected for a prestigious opportunity some months ago, the physical requirements of which would have excluded me, and I bear him no ill will for taking it, though he expressed regret that I could not attend. Of late, his letters grew obscure, referencing discussions we've never had, people I've never met. I believe I've finally deciphered his code. I believe they're doing something to him."

"I'll charter a ship," she said, already standing. 

"I can't ask you to aid me in any way. If the Academy finds out, they will come for you."  

"I'm sure they will. Because I'll be right beside you."

Hermann stared up at her, and Vanessa touched his face. 

She did want to see the universe.

* * *

It's around that time in the story that Chuck finally emerges from the bridge and heads aft for a look at the reason his old man almost got his brains blown out. Raleigh hears shouting from the cargo bay, swears under his breath. Vanessa follows him out of the shuttle. 

"--kind of idiots do you think you're riding with here, Doctor? Think I don't recognize scanner shielding when I see it? Come on, open the box. Let's see what a man like you would steal from the Alliance, yeah?" 

Gottlieb stands still, looking very small in front of Chuck. Herc and Captain Pentecost arrive below, and Raleigh can hear Holiday clanging down the deck behind them, the scratching of Max's claws. 

Chuck gets tired of the standoff. He yanks the box out into a clear spot on the deck, unhooks a pair of toggles and lifts a lever that looks like it's meant for a vacuum seal. From the other side of the cargo bay Mako's voice, harsher than Raleigh has ever heard it, rings out. "Stop. Now." Chuck just looks at her, red-faced, steps back, and kicks the lid off. 

"Huh," he says when the fog clears.

In the infirmary Raleigh checks the man over while Doctor Gottlieb paces anxiously and Vanessa explains, quietly, why they needed the box. Temperature rising toward normal. Heart rate stabilizing. No visible scarring, under his tattoos. Left eye strangely bloodshot. No sign that he's aware of his surroundings, until Doctor Gottlieb steps forward and places a hand on his shoulder, and Doctor Newton Geiszler flinches like he's been burned. "H… Hermann?" 

Gottlieb fishes around in his blazer and produces a pair of black-framed spectacles, sets them gently in Geiszler's hand. The man places them on his face and blinks at the infirmary. "Oh, hey, we're on a ship. Midbook transport. Standard radion accelerator core, class code 03-K64. Firefly." 

"I can't even remember all that," Chuck says from the doorway.  

"Hermann's dad designed this one," Geiszler says, and Gottlieb huffs.

"Yes, yes, please excuse him, he's a bloody show-off. Lie back for the brainscan, Doctor Geiszler." 

No sooner does Raleigh turn on the scanning equipment, with its red light and actuating whine, than Geiszler throws himself off the examination table and finds the smallest space in the room he can occupy, a cavity under a steel counter. He folds himself up into it and whispers, "Nein, nein," and then something that sounds like "Two by two, blood of blue," over and over. 

Vanessa takes a breath and moves forward, but Mako gets ahead of her, and Raleigh almost puts out a hand to stop her before he remembers there isn't really any power in the 'verse that can stop Mako. She crouches down and says, "Doctor Geiszler, no one is going to cut your head open." 

Geiszler goes lucid again, peers at Mako. "They did it to you, too," he says.

"Not the same as you," she replies, and offers her hand.

A few minutes of conversation with Newt and the Gottliebs confirms it: there is no overlap between Eureka Danger and the Drift project. (Hermann states, as an aside, that Doctor Lightcap has lost her mind, and Newt starts shouting, saying she's just as much a victim as anyone else in the program, but Mako and Vanessa get him calmed down again.) He's not a threat to anyone on _Jaeger_ , Mako assures them, and that's a good thing, because at supper Holiday Choi plops herself right down between Newt and Chuck, and when Chuck mutters something about Newt teaching her morbid and creepifying nursery rhymes, Holiday kicks Chuck in the shin. He can't possibly feel it through the steel of his boot, but he still looks hurt.

Mako is next to Chuck and Raleigh is next to Mako, and across from Raleigh, Alison is telling the story of how Holiday had a fever when she was two and they were six days from anyplace, and the crew took shifts with her so the Chois could get some rest, and when her fever finally broke it was Chuck who had her up on the bridge, and he celebrated by falling asleep, and Holiday climbed off him and went straight to the navigation console and by the time Chuck woke up she had managed to get them somewhere that was eight days from anyplace. "It's funny because we could have died," Tendo says as everyone laughs.

"Hey, you know, you might have flown into a breach between dimensions, and that would explain the sudden displacement," says Newt.

"Is that the thing where we're all in a different universe?" Herc asks. 

"How would we know?" Alison says.

"Don't listen to him," Doctor Gottlieb says. "It's patently impossible to travel between--"

"It is _not_ impossible, Hermann! Ugh, you're always so--"

"Both of you, shut up," Captain Pentecost says, and they do.

"Before everyone clears out," says Vanessa Gottlieb a moment later, producing a small wooden box, "I have something to share. I just want you all to know we're grateful."  

She passes the box to Raleigh. He cracks the lid, lets out a breath, gives her an adoring look, says, "Oh, Vanessa," and takes out a strawberry. He passes the box to Mako and waits to take the first bite at the same time she does. Mako pretends to swoon against his shoulder. When Chuck eats his, he makes a noise that Raleigh will never be able to get out of him again. 

There are enough strawberries for everyone to have two, and Raleigh watches the box get passed around. It's cramped at the canteen's little table, will only get moreso in a few months' time. _Jaeger_ wasn't meant to hold so many, at least not the way the elder Doctor Gottlieb designed it.

But Mako's made a lot of modifications, and the ship is stronger than she looks. Raleigh figures she can carry the load.


End file.
